This is probably going to be a long post but I feel like I should post it to try to warn any users who are able to drive, especially those who just got their license or permit. It mostly applies to those who lives in places with cold weather during the winter.
I live in PA and lets just say it has been a rather uneventful winter. We have had one small snow storm so far. That is it, it has been very warm this winter. Today in the morning it got cold enough to cause freezing rain which caused many accidents. Later in the afternoon, temperatures went up to 38-39 and it just rained, melting the ice away.
Tonight I was driving home from a friends house. Everything was still wet from the rain but the temperature was 35 and roads seemed okay so I didn't think much of any ice. Now some of you have seen my car. It is an All Wheel Drive SUV with traction control and all terrain tires. My tires are brand new with near perfect tread on them. This is pretty much an ideal vehicle in snow and I am able to make it through almost anything. I've been driving for 5 years and I've become very good at controlling slides and driving in the snow through practice.
I was sitting at an intersection and my light turned green so I could make my left turn. The car pulled out normally with no problem but I realized halfway through my turn the rear end of my car completely lost traction and was turning me sideways. I did what i normally would in a drift and just went through with it, but quickly noticed the car was heading for a median. I still wasn't to worried at this point. I let off the gas and turned the wheel to pull out of the skid, as I would do if their was snow. I wasn't expecting what happened next. Immediately after turning the wheel I lost all control of all 4 tires. My car pulled a 360 spin across 2 lanes and I saw I was sliding quickly into a roadside ditch full of rocks. At a last resort I locked up the brakes. It continued to skid but finally stopped after it slid off the road and touched the dirt. I stopped only 4 feet from skidding into this ditch.
I'm fine, the car is fine. Everything is okay. The ditch was about 1-2 car heights deep. I'm thinking if I would have hit the ditch It would have been a low speed rollover accident, considering my SUV is more top-heavy then a regular car. The car would have protected me so I would have most likely had little to no injuries, my car would be done though. Needless to say I was pretty freaked out, hands were shaking bad, ex. A driver passing by pulled over to make sure I was okay which was nice to see.
I stepped on to the road and realized it was a sheet of black ice looking like simply wet pavement. I wasn't driving reckless or too fast. I literally just pulled out of an intersection so i was going 15 MPH if that. The way I see it, this was unavoidable.
What I'm trying to get at guys. Is just please be careful. Now I know some of you already know some of this. But seeing as every time their is freezing rain, hundreds of drivers crash, I guarantee not everyone knows. It doesn't matter what kind of car you have, all wheel drive with the best tires you can buy won't protect you from ice. No matter how skilled you are driving, you have no control on icy roads. The only way you can possible have control is if you have tire chains equipped or if you have metal studded tires.
Like I said, I'm very skilled at driving in snow but have little to no experience driving on ice. That is where I went wrong, I got roostery thinking I could pull out of the skid and almost rolled my car because of it. Just trying to warn everybody, don't get roostery in winter weather.
I know a bunch of you are probably of age of just getting your permit or license so I wanted to make this topic to warn you all. Take it slow when it snows or ices. I don't want to see a user get in a bad accident making the same mistake I did thinking they can control the car on icy roads.
